


What Is And What Never Should Be

by Moonlessnite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, M/M, Season/Series 12 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 07:07:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12337905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlessnite/pseuds/Moonlessnite
Summary: Dean is alone in the bunker with his thoughts and the Led Zepplin tape that he gave Cas that was still in Cas' trench coat.





	What Is And What Never Should Be

The only light in the room came from the standup lamp in the corner a few feet from the bed. The bed was swathed in golden luminosity like a dream, while large portions of the room stood in deep shadow, like a nightmare waiting to rise to life. The chair that sat facing the bed was cold and heartbreakingly empty.

The door was closed and locked, shutting out everything possible of the outside world. The rooms only occupant was wearing earphones while leaning back against the sparse headboard shelf, his lifeless green eyes staring blankly ahead as a crackly tape wound in circles in an ancient Sony Walkman.

 _Catch the wind, see us spin, sail away, leave today, way up high in the sky._ __  
But the wind won't blow, you really shouldn't go, it only goes to show  
That you will be mine, by takin' our time.

Beside him on the bed was a dirty and well-worn tan trench coat, almost blending in with the light-colored coverlet. The coat is dusty with grass stains dotting the back here and there, most prevalent around the shoulders of the garment. On the back of the coat, right behind the wearers heart, there’s a small round hole pierced through, surrounded by a ring of blood dried almost black.

Dean reaches over to the bedside table and brings the half empty bottle of whiskey to his mouth. He takes a few deep swallows, his throat working as he drinks it down, down, down, where it burns like hellfire in his belly. It’s nothing compared to the burn in his heart though.

Or the burn he would feel if he allowed it.

Crowley had done something Dean would have never thought possible in his wildest nightmares. That brilliant, smarmy bastard had killed himself to trap and destroy the devil.

And that should have been it. Game over. Case closed. He and Sam should have dived back through the portal and left the devil to rot in that nothing world, never to see or touch his evil begotten child.

But it hadn’t worked liked that. He supposed for him, it never did.

The world had been almost cold, the barren landscape and lack of color seeming to add to the forbidden atmosphere. Tall and death black pointed spires, some decorated with corpses, littered the landscape like obscene artwork. The rest was lost to desolate sand hills, rocks, and dust that seemed to absorb the distant sounds of battle.

It had reminded Dean of Purgatory. Another time he had lost Cas and thought he was gone forever. That he had once again failed his angel.

As he and Sam stood frozen, facing down Lucifer yet again, Cas had strode past them out of the bright flash between worlds. He moved like the true definition of an avenging angel, his angel blade clasped tight in his fist and fierce determination lining the hard set of his jaw and burning in his too blue eyes.

Dean had known, even as Sam was pulling him back, while he screamed out Cas’ name, even then he had known that Cas stood no chance against the devil. If Gabriel, an archangel, couldn’t take out Lucifer, what chance did Cas have?

He was dragged, fighting, through the hole. With a flash, he was back into his world with his brother clutching his arm, his heart crying out in agony. The renewed color, even muted as it was in the midnight stillness, was too bright after that harsh otherworld. The air, more alive and redolent with a thousand fragrances, burned his nose and brought tears to his eyes as he gasped it in to his heaving lungs.

He had scrambled to his feet, his thoughts whirling around his brain like funnel cloud of destruction, not allowing him to hold on to a thought for more than a few seconds. He scrambled to his feet with his heart screaming Cas’ name with every frantic and staccato beat.

It was only moments that felt like years, before another flash blinded him for a second. He blinked twice and there stood Cas like an answer to his prayers. His heart fluttered and his thoughts screamed in relief as he heard his brother say the angels name. They had done it. They’d won. They were alive. They were together.

His angel was with him. Home.

As his heart swelled with an emotion he refused to put words to, the tip of an angel blade shoved directly through Cas’ chest. The night was alight with blue fire coming from his angels mouth and eyes, more of his very lifeforce leaking out around the impaled blade.

He heard the scream “No!” come from his mouth but he felt far away from his actual voice. His mind stuttered to a frantic stop as he felt pain like the blade had pierced his own chest. Before his eyes, before he could stop it, Cas fell dead to the ground and Lucifer loomed up behind his fallen body like Deans worst nightmare come to life.

Their mom had fought Lucifer back and Dean had stood there. Uncomprehending and feeling like he was rooted to the spot. When she had shoved the devil through that twisting, snaking light into the other world, the hole had vanished in a bright flash, like a signal of the end.

Sam had ran into the house. Dean couldn’t move.

Gone. All of it, gone.

Again.

His mom had disappeared into the abyss with devil. He had just got her back from the Men of Letters. Everything wasn’t ok but he was going to make it ok. It was his mom. They were family. Family meant everything.

And now she was gone again.

But Cas had moved further away than just some alternate world. Cas had moved to where Dean couldn’t follow or bring him back. Into the unforgiving embrace of death.

Dean pulls the bottle close and takes several more mouthfuls, swallowing until his lungs burn for him to take a breath before gasping in much needed air. The memories flooded his minds eye of their own volition.

He hadn’t made the decision to collapse, so how was on his knees in front of the angels lifeless body? Cas’ beautiful blue eyes were closed. It was a shame Dean had never taken the time to tell Cas how amazing his eyes were. They had reminded him of the blue of a Kansas fall morning that Dean had seen so many times through the windshield of Baby. A wonderful, luminous color that shone with their own light, especially when he smiled.

His face was so still and perfect now. The lines surrounding his eyes, that always made him look so tired were gone now, erased, just as his light had been. He could have almost been sleeping.

Except for two things.

On the white of his functional dress shirt, a small hole was surrounded by the faintest circle of blood. Dean wanted to move his tie to cover the hole but couldn’t make his arm move. Just move the tie over and cover it. There. Nothing to see. Everything was fine.

It would take more to cover the large expanse of wings burned into the earth on either side of Cas’ prone form. The fragile lines were like a scar in the living earth, tainting them black like death. Dean didn’t know how something so beautiful could become so horrifyingly ugly.

The numbness around his heart started to crack, so Dean tips the bottle back again to drink down the last few ounces. With controlled violence, he sets the bottle down on the bed and opens his hand, allowing it to fall to the side. His other hand, almost of its own volition, has crept over to the trench coat, the material scratchy under the tips of his calloused fingers.

_Oh the wind wont blow and we really shouldn't go and it only goes to show._ _  
Catch the wind, we're gonna see it spin, we're gonna..._

With a shift of his body, Dean turns onto his left side and curls his knees close to this chest. Although he tries, he can’t suppress the tears welling up behind his eyelids, so he squeezes them shut. In the self-imposed darkness, his pulls the old coat up to his face and inhales deeply. Cas’ scent, musky and sweet, still lingers in the fabric. Dean can pull it close and imagine Cas is here in his arms, the way he’s always wanted him to be.

Thoughts that he never let see the light of day flood his mind. The fantasy of Cas lying intertwined with him in bed, his rough lips on Deans as they lost themselves in each other. Cas finally saying the words I love you only to Dean. Dean whispering the words back into Cas’ mouth as he breathes him like air, like life.

And because he waited, because he took his time………

Now everything was lost. A dirty old trench coat was all he had left of the angel who never knew how well and truly he was loved by the man.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a drawing of Dean wearing headphones hooked into an old cassette player, He's flanked by liquor bottles and curled up on his bed clutching Castiels trench coat. 
> 
> The song lyrics in italics are the Led Zeppelin song - What is and what never should be.


End file.
